1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a PC burn-in machine, and more particularly, to a PC burn-in machine for real-time monitoring and response through hierarchical data collection and management via a monitoring device.
2. Description of the Related Art
To increase processing power and add various functions, many devices contain microprocessors, or called central process units (CPUs), for example, fax machines, personal computers (PCs) and scanners. Before these products are packaged and shipped to other sites, they will usually be tested for a long time (for example, 8-72 hours) under the control of functional test programs. In addition, during this testing period, some manufacturers even place these products in a burn-in room, testing the reliability of the components contained in these machines at unusual conditions, such as high temperatures. The burn-in process can discover beforehand some constituent components or design schemes that would fail within a very short time after these products were sold. In other words, the product lifetime is enhanced.
To incorporate with the entire manufacturer environment, the conventional PC burn-in system utilizes on-line testing. The undergoing testing PC is placed on a conveyor belt, and supplied via a plug on a line board connected to the power rail of the conveyor belt. Then a built-in or external testing program is repeatedly applied to the undergoing testing PC.
Manufacturers having enough storage space usually utilize the scheme of directly conveying PCs into a burn-in room through the conveyor belt for functional testing. Such a scheme may be done by automation, but can not be adopted by all PC manufacturers. For manufacturers not having enough space, burn-in testing is more complicated. Basically, PCs are tested by means of platform vehicles. After packaging and basic testing, all machines are sequentially put on the platform vehicle. The platform vehicle has wheels and 4 to 6 layers. When the platform vehicle is full of the machines to be tested, the platform vehicle is directed to the burn-in room. After being supplied by the required power, all machines on the platform vehicle start to undergo the burn-in test. Depending on the size of the tested machines, there may be 16 to 128 machines undergoing the functional test on a platform vehicle, and there may be 10 to 40 platform vehicles in the burn-in room. Generally, the total number of the machines undergoing the burn-in test are quite large. Each machine undergoing the burn-in test has its own maintenance card. When errors occur, an error message will be shown on a LCD panel or the screen freezes. Then inspectors in the burn-in room will record the error condition of each tested machine on its maintenance card. It is obvious that this method wastes a lot of man power and easily creates mistakes. In addition, it is not convenient to analyze the recorded data because the data must be typed into an analyzer. Furthermore, even if most of tested machines are very stable and reliable, it is hard to shorten the burn-in time (for example, from 24 hours to 6 hours) because of lack of data for confirming 99% of the problems that occur within 6 hours. In summary, the conventional burn-in test system has the following disadvantages:
1. It is time consuming because inspection and recording are both done manually; PA1 2. It may be harmful to worker health because of the high temperature involved; PA1 3. Only one error data can be recorded at a time (usually, the display screen freezes when any error occurs); PA1 4. It is difficult to analyze the result; and PA1 5. Energy is wasted since a large number of machines are tested and the burn-in time is long.